Blue Sky Day is a portrait of industrialization captured through 34 monthly grids from 2010-2015. Each month is laid out in a calendar grid structure in consecutive order by day, creating accidents of color patterns. The color palette of Beijing’s sky is documented outside in correlation with regional air quality readings gathered from the Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People’s Republic of China. “Blue Sky Days” have an AQI (Air Quality Index) of 100 or less. And daily AQI readings are calculated from several sets of air pollution data.

This series analyzes our relationship with color in nature and questions how color correlates with data presenting its patterns and ironies. It also illustrates a collective portrait that marks the development of a country similar to the industrialization Europe and the US experienced from the 1700’s – 1900’s.

Blue Sky Day examines our outlook on global consumption, our everyday spending habits, our definition of “wants” vs. “needs” and how our “wants” can be interpreted as “needs” based on cultural and social contexts, thus promoting excessive consumption. The byproduct of this continual and aggregating consumption, which ties in with our increasing population, can be seen through the varied sky colorations in places that produce those products and in places that encapsulate pollution blown in from those highly producing areas.

We are reminded of how our actions and decisions impact us all as pollution traveling from heavily manufacturing areas contribute to the warming of the earth and to extreme weather patterns across the globe. We are also reminded of how our excessive desires and wants can promote the overproduction of products that enables pollution to proliferate. Hopefully, it will allow us to be more thoughtful with how we consume. Perhaps it may even help us to better prioritize our “needs” from our “wants”. - CYJO